September 2003 Archives

Is anyone else a little surprised that Dale Butler, in his newly minted Cabinet post, has dropped all opposition to cultural ties with Cuba [RG September. 30, 2003: Dale Butler does an about face on Cuba]? Dale, enjoying his reward as a Minister for participating in the ouster Jennifer Smith, seems to be quickly flip-flopping on two of the key things he campaigned on prior to the July 24th Election:

1) The peril of establishing a relationship between the Bermuda and Cuban Governments
2) The need to release the many secret reports under the past 5 years of PLP rule.

What is going on here? Did he secretly agree with all the issues he railed against as a back-bencher but decided to play politics shortly before an election? Did he misrepresent himself as a staunchly principled, independently minded maverick - a "man of the people" - aligning himself with the UBP to win in a marginal constituency (Dale won with a 38 vote margin)? Or does he suddenly think that he was wrong all along?

We'll never know but I'm getting a feeling of deja-vu - advocate operating in the "Sunshine of public scrutiny"while doing the exact opposite but telling everyone how open you are. We were told that this was all the evil machinations of an out-of-control, and out-of-touch Jennifer Smith, remove her and you'll see the real PLP. The more things change the more they stay the same!

Today I've started a new weblog focusing primarily on Bermuda's political and social issues.

The commentary expresses my personal views taken largely from current events and stories in the local media. My blog will eventually move once I can get the domain "politics.bm" registered with BermudaNic - which is proving to be a very slow and painful process. I'll probably revisit this issue later.

In the meantime the blog can be found on www.bermudablogs.com/cdunleavy. BermudaBlogs.com is a site I am also working on to host blogs for anyone with a Bermuda connection.

I'll be adding to the site over time as much content as possible, based on your feedback and interest.